Reasons pain services should include pharmacists

Reasons pain services should include pharmacists

There are a number of reasons pain management should include pharmacy input, including the following:

Hospitals are enhancing palliative care services.

Many hospitals are starting to add or enhance their palliative care services, says Christopher Herndon, PharmD, BCPS, an assistant professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

"A large reason for this is to provide better patient care," he adds. "This is a way for pharmacists to get involved in an area where hospitals already are putting resources."

Physicians need assistance.

Physicians might decide to make changes to a patient's opioid use and, if they do, the pharmacist is the person they might call for assistance.

Pharmacists can help with patient screenings and monitoring.

It helps to have a pharmacist on board, particularly in the more complicated pain medicine cases.

Some patients with little opioid experience could become oversedated, a problem that easily could be prevented if a pharmacist were involved to evaluate and monitor the patient's situation, says Lee Kral, PharmD, BCPS, a clinical pharmacy specialist in pain medicine at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City.